1891 Cole Porter born

1903 The Charleston first performed. The face of popular music begins to change

1911 Bernard Herrmann born in New York City

1914 The foxtrot, a new Vaudevillian dance based on a combination of quick and slow steps becomes internationally popular, as does the music that accompanies it

1917 Cole Porter goes to Paris where he socialises with the artists, poets and musicians of the Left Bank, adding a European influence to his music and lyrics

The theremin invented by Russian music pioneer Leon Theremin

1918 Leonard Bernstein born

1919 Cole Porter marries handsome socialite Linda Lee Thomas in Paris. The couple enjoy a mutually platonic but lasting relationship

1923 Cole Porter writes the music for a modern jazz ballet, Within the Quota, performed by the Ballet Suedois in Paris

1929 'I Get a Kick out of You', with its risqué lyrics, becomes a hit

1932 Cole Porter’s comedy musical Gay Divorce, results in the hit song 'Night and Day'

1934 Anything Goes, the Cole Porter musical based on a motley group of characters sailing from New York to England, spawns the hit song of the same name. The song doubles up as a potted social comment of the day

Bernard Herrmann appointed conductor and arranger of the CBS Symphony Orchestra at CBS Radio

1935 In the same year that composer Irving Berlin pens the cheery classic 'Cheek to Cheek', Cole Porter breaks new ground with 'Just One of Those Things', composing the song in a minor key – a songwriting device that would become his hallmark

1936 'Goodbye Little Dream, Goodbye' – the sentiment of Cole Porter’s morbid ballad concerning a suicidal lover is deemed unsuitable for audiences and is subsequently dropped from a Hollywood film and a Broadway show

1937 Cole Porter is involved in a horrific horse-riding accident and fractures both his legs, leading to lifelong ill-health

1938 The War of the Worlds, Herrmann's first collaboration with Orson Welles, is broadcast on radio

When Mary Martin performs a riskily seductive version of 'My Heart Belongs to Daddy' in Cole Porter’s Broadway show Leave it to Me, both the star and the song become an overnight sensation. The song would go on to find lasting fame in Marilyn Monroe’s enduring rendition from the 1960s film Let’s Make Love

1941 Citizen Kane released. Director Orson Welles lauds Herrmann's score. In the same year, Herrmann wins an Oscar for The Devil and Daniel Webster

1942 Leonard Bernstein completes his first symphony, Jeremiah

1943 When conductor Bruno Walter falls ill, Bernstein takes his place and leads a radio performance with the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall

Upcoming choreographer Jerome Robbins suggests to Leonard Bernstein that they collaborate on a ballet, Fancy Free which will form the basis of the hit musical On the Town

1944 Premiere of Bernstein's musical On the Town

1948 Despite increasing ill-health, Porter’s new musical Kiss Me, Kate, becomes one of his greatest successes

1949 Premiere of Bernstein's second symphony The Age of Anxiety

1951 Herrmann pioneers an electronic music score in the sci-fi classic The Day the Earth Stood Still

1952 Though Karlheinz Stockhausen's 'Etude' is credited as the first significant experiment in electronic music, Herrmann's efforts had preceded it

1953 Bernstein is the first American to conduct opera at the La Scala opera house in Milan

1954 Composer Edgar Varese is also mistakenly credited as pioneering electronic music with his work 'Deserts'

1955 Herrmann starts working with filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock on The Trouble with Harry

1956 Premiere of Bernstein's opera, Candide

1957 Leonard Bernstein is appointed Music Director of the New York Philharmonic, becoming the first American-born and trained conductor to be so

Bernstein, along with Jerome Robbins and Stephen Sondheim, creates the landmark stage musical West Side Story, which premieres at New York's Winter Garden

John Lennon forms the Quarrymen

1958 Herrmann composes score for Hitchcock's Vertigo

1960 Herrmann's score for Hitchcock's Psycho breaks new ground in film music

The Beatles go to Hamburg

1961 Premiere of the film version of West Side Story, starring Natalie Wood

1962 The Beatles release 'Love Me Do'

1963The Beatles release 'From Me to You' and Please Please Me album

1963 Premiere of Bernstein's third symphony, Kaddish

1964 Cole Porter dies in Hollywood

The Beatles release 'And I Love Her', 'A Hard Day's Night' and A Hard Day's Night album

1965 One of the most famous composer-director relationships comes to an end as Hitchcock fires Hermann from the film Torn Curtain

The Beatles release Yesterday and Help album

1966 A new generation discovers Herrmann – the composer is asked to write the score for François Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451

The Beatles release 'Yellow Submarine', 'Eleanor Rigby', 'Tomorrow Never Knows' and Revolver album

1967 The Beatles' manager Brian Epstein dies.

The Beatles release 'Strawberry Fields Forever', 'I am the Walrus', 'Penny Lane', 'Your Mother Should Know', 'She's Leaving Home' and Magical Mystery Tour album

1968 The Beatles release 'Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite', 'With a Little Help from My Friends', 'A Day In The Life' and Sgt Pepper album

1969 The Beatles give their last public performance on the roof of the Apple building

1970 The Beatles break up

1971 John Lennon releases 'Jealous Guy' and Imagine album

The John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC is inaugurated with the premiere of Bernstein's Mass, A Theater Piece

1975 Herrmann dies hours after recording the music for Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver

1976 Herrmann's score for Taxi Driver is nominated for an Oscar

1990 Leonard Bernstein dies